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Seismic data visualisation
M. Ivančić*, Ž. Mihajlović*. and I. Ivančić**
* University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia
** University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science, Department of Geophysics, Zagreb, Croatia
matejka.ivancic@gmail.com, zeljka.mihajlovic@fer.hr, iivancic@gfz.hr
Abstract - The focal mechanism of an earthquake and fault
plane solutions provide insight into the geology of an area.
The objective of this paper is to give a means of better
understanding fault movement when an earthquake occurs.
In this paper we present an interactive 3D visualisation of
possible fault plane solutions, which are usually represented
as 2D “beach-ball” plots, with their respective block models.
Additionally a 3D alleviation display of an area, with
respective beach ball earthquake representations, provides a
more in depth picture of seismological maps under the
earth’s surface. The program solution allows a better grasp
of space, which is useful to students of seismology and
anyone who wants to visualize fault movement of an
earthquake.
Key words: interactive visualisation, fault plane, focal
mechanism,
I.
INTRODUCTION
Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes. An
earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in
the Earth’s crust in the form of seismic waves. The most
common earthquakes are tectonic earthquakes, caused by
rupture of geological faults. Faulting is relative movement
of two geological blocks (walls), by creating a new fault
or shifting along an existing fault plane [1].
The full process of an earthquakes hypocentre is very
complicated and difficult to describe exactly. However,
some of the properties observed on seismograms can be
described by mathematical models of a point source with
the conditions to observe phenomena far from the source
and in the short time after the earthquake begins [2].
When the earth suddenly moves during an earthquake,
energy is released and seismic waves radiate from the
Earthquakes hypocentre in all directions [1]. The waves
travel through the Earth’s interior towards the surface.
There are two types of waves: the faster longitudinal
waves (P-waves) and slower transverse waves (S-waves).
The waves are recorded by seismographs, and correspond
to up and down movements on the seismogram [3].
II.
FAULT MECHANISM
In the early 20th century, by observing the pattern of
first motions (first arriving P waves), seismologists
noticed that the first movement of a seismographs pen
(recorded direction of the first shift of a geological block)
340
Figure 1. First motions observed from different directions[2].
depends on where the station is located relative to the
epicentre [2].
The fault walls move in different directions which
creates a different P wave polarity (seen in Fig. 1). If a
block moves towards a seismological station, the
seismograph will record the first shift as a compression
with an up movement, but if a block moves away from
the station, it is called dilatation and it will be recorded
with a down movement. On a map, these areas can be
divided by lines into four quadrants, each of which has a
different polarity, but without further information there is
no way to decide what type of a fault it is [3].
Seismologists examine the first motion of the P waves
from local and remote stations to reconstruct the initial
forces that triggered the event [1].
A. Fault types
There are three main fault types [2]:

strike-slip, where the offset is predominately
horizontal, parallel to the fault trace.

dip-slip, offset is predominately vertical and/or
perpendicular to the fault trace.

oblique-slip, combining significant strike and dip
slip.
An earthquake is described by the faults orientation
and shift direction (seen in Fig. 2) [1]:

Strike (φ) is the azimuth of a line created by the
intersection of a fault plane and a horizontal
surface, 0º to 360º, relative to North
MIPRO 2015/DC VIS
Figure 4. Example of ambiguity
Figure 2. Fault geometry: fault orientation determined by the direction
of the fault, dip angle and rake angle [3].

Dip (δ) is the angle between the fault and a
horizontal plane, 0º to 90º

Rake (or slip, λ ) is the direction a hanging wall
block moves during rupture, as measured on the
plane of the fault relative to fault strike, -180º to
180º (CCW)
The orientation is defined such that a fault dips to the
right side. The hanging wall block is therefore always on
the right, and the foot wall block on the left [1].
If the fault breaks the surface, the angles can be
determined by geological methods, but in most cases,
earthquakes do not break the surface and seismological
data must be used to determine fault plane solutions [3].
B. Fault mechanism in practice
After an earthquake occurs, seismologists create
graphics of focal mechanisms by mapping the P wave
information on a focal sphere, informally referred to as a
beach ball, to show the faulting motions that produced
the earthquake. Focal mechanisms, also known as faultplane solutions, are based on the direction of the first
arriving P wave [1-4].
The orientations of the first P waves are gathered
from a number of stations and plotted onto the focal
sphere. If there are sufficient observations, two planes are
drawn to divide the compressive from the tensional
observations and these are the nodal planes (seen in Fig.
3). By convention the compressional quadrants are colorfilled and the tensional (dilatation) left white [3,5].
The fault plane responsible for the earthquake will be
parallel to one of the nodal planes, the other being called
the auxiliary plane. Unfortunately it is not possible to
determine solely from a focal mechanism which of the
nodal planes is in fact the fault plane [3, 5].
A typical example can be seen in Fig. 4. A strike-slip
fault with shift direction towards north (rake λ = 0º, strike
φ = 0º) is indistinguishable from the strike-slip fault with
shift direction towards west (rake λ = 180º, strike φ = 90º)
[7].
To remove the ambiguity other geological or
geophysical evidence is needed. There are a number of
methods such as the terrain method (knowing the geology
of the area will help identify the most likely fault
geometry) or by comparing the two fault-plane
orientations to the alignment of small earthquakes and
aftershocks [7].
III.
IMPLEMENTATION
Interpreting fault plane solutions can be difficult,
especially because they are generally given as twodimensional stereographic projections of the lower
hemisphere of a focal mechanism sphere. In order to
make it easier to understand and visualize, we present an
interactive three-dimensional visualisation of faults and
their matching beach balls.
The program solution offers the possibility of entering
fault parameters (strike, dip and rake) with the option of
seeing a matching beach ball as a three-dimensional
sphere and the stereographic projection that is usually
used on seismic maps. Furthermore a 3D relief display of
Croatia, with respective beach ball earthquake
representations of selected earthquakes provides a more
in depth picture of seismological maps under the earth’s
surface.
To make our solution easily available for learning
purposes, the technologies used were WebGL with the
Three.js JavaScript library.
A. Fault visualisation
To simplify an earthquake process, geological blocks
are displayed as cuboid bodies (seen in Fig. 5). A
transparent plane represents the fault plane and a helper
Figure 3. Focal mechanism examples for Croatian earthquakes that
took place in Middle Dalmatia, the island of Krk and Jabuka [6]. The
crosses represent compression and circles dilatation.
MIPRO 2015/DC VIS
Figure 5. Fault visualisation
341
Figure 6. Beach balls with local and global axis
vector shows the direction of the hanging wall.
Additionally, a compass points around the fault blocks
helps to show the azimuth relative to north. The hanging
wall shift is emphasized for the sake of demonstration.
B.
Focal sphere visualisation
The focal sphere, informally referred to as a beach
ball, is a sphere divided into four parts. The color fields
describe a shift from the focus (compression), while
white fields describe towards the focus (dilatation).
For better understanding, the beach ball is shown both
as a 3D interactive sphere and as a generally used twodimensional stereographic projection of the lower
hemisphere.
C. Fault visualisation with the focal sphere
To better illustrate the focal mechanism solutions, we
take as an example the earthquake that took place near the
island Jabuka on 27th March 2003 (which focal
mechanism solution can be seen in Fig.3) and show both
of the possible solutions as a block model with the
respective beach balls. The ambiguity between the two
possible physical solutions obtained from seismic data and
seen in Fig. 6 can now easily be seen from the presented
block model and the corresponding focal spheres.
Figure 8. The process of creating the terrain map
purpose we made a map of Croatia on which we placed
focal mechanism solutions of representative earthquakes
from the Archives of the Department of Geophysics [8].
The height map and terrain texture were made based
on data from OpenTopography [9-13] and Corine Land
Cover dataset from European Environment Agency
(EEA) [14]. The area covered is from 42 ° to 47 ° N and
from 13 ° to 20 ° E. The process and final map can be
seen in Fig. 8 [15-18]. The relief was accentuated for
demonstration purposes. Selecting a beach ball shows
information about the earthquake (date, magnitude,
coordinates and depth), the block model and
corresponding beach ball (seen in Fig. 9).
a)
D. Relief map
One of the methods to remove the ambiguity is the
terrain method, where knowing the geology of the area
will help identify the most likely fault geometry. For this
b)
Figure 7. Visualized data from the earthquake that occurred near the
island of Jabuka on 27th March 2003
342
c)
Figure 9. a) Selecting a particular earthquake shows b) the focal
mechanism of the earthquke, where one can change the view angle and
visualise the shift of the fault plane in space. This example shows an
eathquake that took place on 23rd March 2005 at 23h 44m, magnitude 4.2
(φ = 334º, σ = 24º and λ = 90º).
MIPRO 2015/DC VIS
movement of an earthquake.
Additionally a 3D relief display of Croatia with
respective beach ball representations provides a more in
depth picture of seismological maps under the earth’s
surface.
REFERENCES
Figure 10. The map with the Geological map of Croatian faults (shown
with full opacity and partly transparent so the beach balls can be seen
from all angles)
Furthermore, we add a second texture showing the
Geological map of Croatian faults (seen in Fig. 10) [19].
Fig. 11 shows how this allows for a better
visualisation of fault plane solution spatial distribution.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
E. User interface
The program was implemented using WebGL and
Three.js JavaScript library as a website [20]. The menu is
in the left bottom corner, where the user can change
between the focal mechanism visualisation and catalogue
of Croatian earthquakes in map view. It takes a little time
for beach balls representing the earthquakes to load and
apply needed transformations, as there are quite a number
of them.
IV.
CONLUSION
Focal mechanisms are determined based on earthquake
analysis from a number of seismic stations. Its importance
lies in the geological and seismological information that is
gained about an earthquake’s physical process. Fault plane
solutions allow insight into the geological structure of an
area.
The main objective of this paper was to give a means
of better understanding fault movement by giving an
interactive 3D visualisation of possible fault plane
solutions (usually represented as 2D plots) with their
respective block models. The program solution allows a
better grasp of space, which is useful to students of
seismology and anyone who wants to visualize fault
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Figure 11. Different viewpoints of Jabuka epicenter area
MIPRO 2015/DC VIS
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